


The Greatest Victory

by misaffection



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-02
Updated: 2013-07-02
Packaged: 2017-12-17 11:39:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/867119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misaffection/pseuds/misaffection
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Baal is Extracted, a part of Aziru's past resurfaces...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Greatest Victory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [campylobacter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/campylobacter/gifts).



> Aziru and Yael are named in the Big Finish SG-1 story "An Eye for An Eye".

Vala sat beside Baal’s – no, it was Aziru now – bedside. He filled the narrow cot both in length and breadth. Yet he seemed smaller somehow, as if the Extraction had reduced him. He was pale beneath the tan. His chest shifted as he breathed short and rapid. Vala put a hand on his forehead and found his skin hot and dry. That he’d survived the Extraction at all was a miracle. There’d been a brief moment of consciousness between the chamber and the softly-lit cell. Enough to give her hope he’d survive the aftermath.

The door to the cell opened and a Tok’ra entered on silent feet. Vala cast the woman a quick glance, but Aziru dominated her attention. She deeply regretted how she’d treated one clone – she was determined not to repeat that error with this one.

“You should rest, Vala Mal Doran,” the Tok’ra said quietly. “He shall not awaken for some time.”

Vala looked up. It was impossible to put an age to the woman, though she seemed younger than those who had stood in the chamber to witness Baal’s end. Her brown eyes were locked on the fitfully sleeping man.

“I don’t want him to wake up alone,” Vala told her. “What he’ll go through is unpleasant enough without that.”

“I shall stay with him.”

Vala snorted. “And why should you care?”

The woman’s mouth curved in a sad smile. “My name is Miriam of the Tok’ra, but I have read the reports of SG-1 and I know that means nothing to you. But there is a name that would, Vala Mal Doran, and that is Yael of Akharan.”

Jumping to her feet, Vala put herself between Miriam and Aziru. “What do you know of her?” she demanded.

Miriam didn’t blink. “She is my mother.”

Vala could only gape. She remembered the distraught clone begging for his wife, frantic because… because… “She was with child,” she murmured and stared at Miriam. “You’re the child. But I thought that he… that Baal had…”

“No.” Miriam sighed and sank onto the other chair. “Perhaps he believed it, but she lived. After… wards, she stayed with him and tried to lessen his actions. There were times he listened, but more when he did not. Eventually, she became afraid for our safety and fled to the Tok’ra.”

As she took down her hood, Vala caught the strong resemblance between father and daughter. Her heart squeezed – to live amongst those who were Baal’s enemies must have been a terrible existence, yet there was no anger on her face. Rather she seemed infinitely sad; another life that Baal had ruined, no matter how accidentally.

“Where is your mother now?”

“Dead many years. She was offered a symbiote, but refused.”

“She was afraid of becoming like Baal.”

“Yes. I chose otherwise, because I understood the difference.”

“So now he’s free of the symbiote?” Vala had her own reasons for staying. She sat next to Miriam and offered a hand. “He remembered her, you know. Even after all that time. He did love her.”

“I remember the stories she told me of the time… before. I will help him recall those times. It might help, don’t you think?”

Vala smiled and squeezed Miriam’s hand. “I do.”

“Good.”

Silence fell, broken only by Aziru’s hard breathing. Vala didn’t want to know what dreams chased through his unconscious mind. Her own were more than enough to contend with. And yet things were quite so bleak: he would not wake alone in the dark, to the terrifying realisation that his habitation was over, the memories remained and would always be there.

But he had her to help him with that, and Miriam to help him recollect happier times. Together they would keep him whole and that, in her opinion, would be the greatest victory over Baal and the Goa’uld.


End file.
